PS3 Releases: week of June 2nd, 2008

on the shelves

06/03: GRID (metacritic) – if nothing else, the PS3 has pretty good racing games. GRID is more arcade than GT, more focused on online racing, more NASCAR in objectives (progress is getting better sponsors.) The game offers the ability to rewind driving for a few seconds (Flashback), so you can go back to before you made a wide turn or hit a wall. Of course, that means they made it harder to avoid doing those things. There’s an instant replay feature, but you can’t actually save them.

06/03: Kung Fu Panda (metacritic) – better than your usual movie tie-in, but an easy adventure/platform game kids who like the movie will be happy with. There’s good off-line multiplayer modes, but you can only get to them by playing thru most of the single player game.

06/03: LEGO Indiana Jones (metacritic) – if you’ve played LEGO Star Wars (or, like me, you have it in your PS3 at this very moment), you’re getting the same thing here. It’s recreations of the movies (not the Crystal Skull, and altered to fit the video game), strung out over six stages of platform jumping/drone killing adventures. It’s fun with two players, except there’s no online two player mode here as in some of the Star Wars games. Gameplay isn’t very long (10 hours), but if you like games where you have to go back and do every little thing, this is for you, but it doesn’t add much new in terms of how the game is played.

06/03: The Bourne Conspiracy (metacritic) – yet another movie game in, though this ends up a bit disappointing. Hand to hand combat is good, shooting is less than accurate, and the one driving stage is just strange (you’re either driving the fastest Hummer ever or the most indestructible Mini Cooper.) Really, you just want to try this for the hand to hand combat, which is very well realized and brings in the environment into play as you’d expect if you’ve seen any of the movies. Nothing else sounds that good. The story mode is on the short side, and there’s nothing else to do except play it all on a harder level. PS3 has a big install, and it doesn’t seem to make the game play smoothness better than the 360. I still think the loading screens are a bit ridiculous.

06/06: The Incredible Hulk (metacritic) – a fourth movie tie in! Game wasn’t released until the same day the movie was, so noe’s reviewed this one yet.

Essentially, this is PSMagazine in video, hosted by Veronica Belmont (who’s actually on my TV right now – if Rosati’s Pizza comes up in the download section, Sony may be watching me.) Interviews with game designers and Sony, which is all fine and good but not something that seems worth $3. The catch is you’ll get the kind of content that’s usually listed below – game videos, screen shots and occasional demos – but it’ll be exclusive to people who pay for that tiered access. (You’ll also be getting ads – well, this is all ads, but ads for something else once during each game section you check out.) PS3Fanboy has a screen tour of the first episode.

I think this is for those who are already obsessively checking gaming sites for the latest preview videos and buying a couple gaming magazines to check for screen shots. If you must see it all, well, there’s more for you to see here.

Big picture, this is the first movement towards 360’s model of giving preferred access for online features to those who are paying for it. Unlike 360, people who aren’t paying are still going to play the actual games the same way – it’s not limiting anything.

Downloadable Games
– Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 {$10} – continuation of the old arcade shooter that rests on nostalgia of the old series. IGN says it’s nothing special.

– NOVASTRIKE {$10} – arcade shooter than no one’s bothered to review. Yes, they put up two arcade shooters in the same week.

PS1 Classics (none for 5 weeks)

Add on Content
– Guitar Hero III
* “The End Begins (to Rock)” {free – even if you don’t have the game, you can get the music for free)
* Motorhead 3 Pack {$6.25, no indivudal sells} – “Say Clean”, “(We Are) The Road Crew”, “Motorhead”